Team Building Research report by MIT

Team building study

Now more than ever, the notion of trying to build a great team is sharply in the focus of business leaders. It is part of the reason that they come to us in order to use our team building events. In this article, we show the vast benefits of enhanced team integration and why team building events are popular and effective at building productivity in teams.

The need to improve productivity has prompted a great number of studies into the area of team-building as academia attempts to answer the burning questions of what makes a good team and how the process can be “hacked” in order to make it repeatable and teachable. Nowhere is this truer than at MIT, their Human Dynamics Laboratory has identified the group dynamics that underpin high-performing teams. They have now discovered that these dynamics are measurable and can importantly be taught to teams in order to make them stronger.

Communication

It seems obvious, but teams that performed well had an advanced level of communication within them, they appeared to have a unique style that was shared. Researchers found that these patterns of communication were common in high-performing teams and were linked as a strong predictor of the success of the team. The researchers gathered the information by wiring up workers in teams in differing sectors. They collected a huge data set that allowed them to break down exactly what it was that separated top performing teams and the also-rans.

Team work

The strong and unique communication that was present in the top performers showed that teams with more energy and engagement had better communication and thus created better teams. Researchers noted that teams that spent longer together outside of the work environment had better interpersonal relationships and were higher performers. Researchers concluded that staff should be encouraged to take breaks together to foster this enhanced level of communication. Indeed in the study, a bank that moved its call centre staff’s breaks found huge improvements by getting the staff together on those breaks.

Productivity

The implementation of quite simple strategies can garner a huge result; during the study, the researchers were based in the call centre of a bank, after adding in the tips from the researchers they’re forecasting a $15m a year productivity increase over their 25,000 staff.

The normal thinking has been that staff only work for rewards, while rewards do constitute part of the picture, the work environment itself and the strength of the team overall can be of huge influence in engagement and productivity.

If you want to foster some of this into your team, then why not book one of our team building events? We can help to create a setting so that your staff can get to know each other a little better in a creative and fun environment. Give your team a productivity boost and get in touch today.